intro

Hey you! First of all I want to say hi and thank you for taking the time to be here, it means a lot to me :) This is my first ever blog post, and I’m incredibly excited to share it with you.

Most of you probably know me personally, or have been around for a while on @eatzbysara on instagram, but for new friends I’ll quickly introduce myself. My name is Sara, I am twenty years old, and I am passionate about wellness, positivity, and living a life that brings me joy. I always laugh at myself a little when I say that, “passionate about living a life that brings me joy”. It sounds cheesy, simple even, but learning to live this way (and genuinely believe it) completely changed me.

Somebody messaged me on instagram the other day asking how I seem to find joy in the repetitive nature of life. I had to think about this one. Loving the way I experience the world is not something I have always been lucky enough to do, in fact I spent years feeling like I had no control over my life at all. Happiness to me was extremely fragile, and depended solely on external factors. My world froze with every single setback I was faced with, my mind was constantly exhausted and I felt lost. I went through mental health struggles that I am not ready to talk about publicly, or even write them down for that matter. Through it all I remember being frustrated, wanting so badly to find joy in my life, but feeling confined to a body and mind that could not find happiness in anything. I felt like my own enemy. I am not including this to express how I reframed my outlook on life, fixed my mental health, or made major changes that led to me growing into the person I am today. Because I don’t know any of that, I don’t have a magic answer or a quick fix. All I know is through the ebbs and flows of life, come the ebbs and flows of me, and I’ve learned to accept myself through the lows just as much as the highs.

As I stared at the message on my phone, my thumbs hadn’t moved and I was still stumped on how to answer it. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what changed for me in the recent months. My interests haven’t really changed, my friends are the same, my job is the same, even my daily breakfast is the same. Despite the fact that my life is pretty much the same, it feels monumentally different. After spending almost an entire day pondering this question, I began typing: “I started learning how to live for myself…”

Somewhere in the midst of my recent semester in college, my spotify playlists became public, I painted my nails neon colors, started biking across campus to class, threw away my concealer and foundation, shamelessly carried avocados around in my backpack, wore whatever clothes I wanted, and smiled at people when I walked past them. I knew people might have their judgments and opinions, everybody does (including me). But I stopped allowing my perception of people’s opinions to dim my light. I was sick of not knowing who I was, and I was sick of living a life where I felt limited. Simply put, I tried to just stop caring. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and be who I truly wanted to be, all the time.

I found confidence, self-respect, athletic motivation and a work ethic I never thought I could ever be capable of. I began reaching out to old friends and checking in on new ones more frequently, picked up my old hobbies like knitting and making jewelry, started actually posting on my instagram account that was stagnant for three years, and most importantly, here I am writing the first post on my very own blog. If Sara from the past knew any of this, she would be shocked. I completely changed how I live my life without physically changing anything major, I’ve just fallen in love with the way I experience it. I am seeing the world for the first time, through eyes that are unapologetically mine.

And that’s why I made this blog. To document my experience with the world and share it with you. I can’t say how regularly I’ll be writing stuff on here, but I’m glad now I have a place to put my random thoughts.

Thanks for reading <3

SF